policy & reform
The high price of a low
ATAR
While entry scores for education courses have dipped at some universities, academics are fighting back against claims that teacher training is diminishing. ByAileen Macalintal
As tertiary institutions reduce their ATAR minimum cut-offs for education courses, questions are being asked about the quality of teachers this creates for the future.
At the University of Sydney, ATAR cut-off scores for Bachelor of Education( Primary Education) were raised from 87.25( 2011) to 90( 2012), but for the rest of the university’ s education courses, the cut-off was lowered.
With 2011 and 2012 figures compared, Early Childhood Education slid from 80.50 down to 78.40; Secondary Education( Humanities and Social Sciences) from 84.15 down to 80.30; and Secondary Education( Maths) from 87.10 to 82.45.
At Victoria University, the cut-off for a Bachelor of Education degree was 51.
At the University of Ballarat, for Education( P-6 or P-10) in 2009 the cut-off was 54.05. This increased the following year to 56.90, but slid to 50.15( 2011) then to 47.20( 2012), and finally to 43.75 this year.
“ In NSW in 2012, more than 20 per cent of entrants for undergraduate teacher education courses had ATAR scores below 60 and education was the least popular course for students with scores of 90 or above,” said a discussion paper released by NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli.
The paper said that ATAR scores vary in different teacher education institutions. Some have high cutoffs, while some have scores lower than 60, even as low as 40.
Perspectives on ATAR
The University of Notre Dame Australia seeks to promote the prestige of the teaching profession“ rather than using the ATAR as the sole criterion”.
In response to Piccoli’ s paper,“ Great Teaching, Inspired Learning,” Notre Dame, Sydney said that the ATAR is a limited measure of students’ capacity for higher education studies, even if it is a good predictor of success.
Notre Dame said that the performance of education students whose ATAR scores range from the 70s to 90s show little variation.
“ The other complicating factor around ATAR scores is that the consistent highlighting of cut-offs fails to take account and therefore does injustice to the higher and mean scores involved. The evidence is that teacher education in fact attracts an impressive number of high performing ATAR candidates, said Notre Dame.
For the NSW Council of Deans of Education overemphasis on ATAR cut-offs can be“ a pernicious and distracting exercise,” according to their response to the discussion paper.
“ ATARs are not the best predictors of success in teacher education programs and do not reflect the diversity of teacher graduates that are needed by society, hence we need flexible pathways for entry, especially for underrepresented groups,” they said.
However, the council acknowledged the perception that high cut-off scores signify prestige.
“ Courses requiring high ATARs for entry tend to have greater standing and respect within the community, hence ways do need to be considered to ensure entrants to the teaching profession gain greater standing and respect,” they said.
The English / Literacy team at the NSW Curriculum and Learning Innovation Centre laments that low ATAR cut-off diminishes the appeal of education courses. �
www. campusreview. com. au Issue 2 2013 | 21